Saturday, February 17, 2018

A prominent Republican political donor demanded on Saturday that the party pass legislation to restrict access to guns, and vowed not to contribute to any candidates or electioneering groups that did not support a ban on the sale of military-style firearms to civilians.

Al Hoffman Jr., a Florida-based real estate developer who was a leading fund-raiser for George W. Bush’s campaigns, said he would seek to marshal support among other Republican political donors for a renewed assault weapons ban.

“For how many years now have we been doing this — having these experiences of terrorism, mass killings — and how many years has it been that nothing’s been done?” Mr. Hoffman said in an interview. “It’s the end of the road for me.”

Mr. Hoffman announced his ultimatum in an email to half a dozen Republican leaders, including Jeb Bush and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida. He wrote in the email that he would not give money to Mr. Scott, who is considering a campaign for the Senate in 2018, or other Florida Republicans he has backed in the past, including Representative Brian Mast, if they did not support new gun legislation.

“I will not write another check unless they all support a ban on assault weapons,” he wrote. “Enough is enough!”

Hoffman was raised on the south side of Chicago, the youngest of seven children. His father, a Jewish Austrian, emigrated to the United States in 1906 and opened a poultry store, while his mother was a Scottish-American immigrant who grew up in Kentucky.

Fake Americans neither understand nor respect fundamental American rights. They may be paper citizens, but they are not Posterity and they are not Americans.

If I were the Chairman of the RNC, I would very publicly expel Mr. Hoffman Jr. from the Republican Party. The man is attempting to use his money and influence to disarm Americans and deny them their unalienable rights. I'd call him a traitor, except, of course, he is not an American at all. Even the civic nationalists with their "creedal nation" nonsense can't deny that, as Mr. Hoffman Jr. does not accept the creed or the Constitution.

A fortnight tomorrow, Italians will go to the polls in an election that was ill-tempered enough before the horror show in Macerata.

The EU’s failed migration policies and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of African migrants on the Italian coast had already made immigration one of the two big issues in the election on March 4. The other is Italy’s dismal economy, currently buried under £2 trillion of national debt. Macerata has raised the stakes even higher.

Most Italians I meet blame their politicians for ineptitude and the EU for abandoning them. They are in a vengeful mood.... Berlusconi’s coalition partners are the hard-Right League or ‘Lega’ (previously the breakaway Northern League) and the even-more-Right-wing neo-fascist Brothers of Italy. Despite the name, they are led by a woman and their candidates include Rachele Mussolini, granddaughter of the wartime dictator.

As for the Left, things are looking bleak. Italy’s centre-Left Democratic Party (PD) is the only one sharing the vision of ever-closer European union peddled by France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel. But Italians want less Europe, not more.

Even diehard supporters of the PD admit this is not their year. Their great hope, the shiny Macron-style Matteo Renzi, was prime minister for five minutes, but destroyed his career with a botched referendum on the constitution in 2016 and had to be replaced by a caretaker PM.

Once the country has voted a fortnight hence, Italy seems likely to join the EU’s anti-Brussels nationalist awkward squad of Poland, Austria, Hungary and others.

There is, though, little appetite for a Brexit-style break with Europe — there will be no ‘Quitaly’ just yet — largely because the country could not stand the economic shock.

But Brussels is viewed with utter contempt. And politicians across the board are now capitalising on the Macerata situation. Berlusconi himself has warned of a ‘social bomb’ as a result and says that just 5 per cent of Italy’s 600,000 migrants are legitimate refugees who should be allowed to stay.

The newspaper La Repubblica has carried a pre-Macerata opinion poll showing that 40 per cent of Italians ‘strongly or very strongly’ agree that migrants represent ‘a danger to public order and personal safety’.

Here in Macerata, 150 miles north of Rome, I find zero appetite for greater European integration — and this is a Left-wing university town.

Historically, it would have been firmly behind the liberal consensus.

Not any more. Even the liberals talk like Ukip, while those on the Right talk of mass deportations.

I'm definitely pro-Lega and pro-Salvini. Berlusconi is getting all the attention, of course, but Salvini is the much more serious player and he's going to be around a lot longer than Silvio. I don't think Italy is psychologically ready to shed the burden of the EU yet, but people dislike it a LOT more than they did back when it was Euros flooding into Italy instead of Africans.

But again, notice the difference between the strength of the reaction and the numbers involved. The European nations will defend themselves before it is too late and they will survive.

Black Panther is not only the best superhero movie ever made, it is also the most successful. More or less. This just goes to show that Obama really did heal the racial divide in the United States and end global racism.

By the time the four-day President’s Day holiday stretch ends, Black Panther will have surpassed many of Marvel’s mightiest on the all-time domestic B.O. openers chart. Black Panther is now looking at the 6th best opening of all-time on a 3-day-basis with an estimated $187.6M per industry projections and a mind-blowing $216M over four days.

How much do moviegoers love Black Panther? The Ryan Coogler-directed movie earned an A+ CinemaScore tonight, Marvel’s second after 2012’s The Avengers.

On the 3-day all-time chart, Black Panther is just above Captain America: Civil War ($179.1M). Back in January Fandango reported that out of the gate in its first 24 hours, Black Panther outstripped the advance tickets sales of Civil War, however, analysts didn’t rush to comp the Wakanda superhero to Marvel’s other titles. They just couldn’t believe at the time how massive this was going to be. While Black Panther is under Avengers: Age of Ultron on the 3-day all-time openers list ($191.2M), the pic is beating the sequel’s four-day run ($204.4M). Black Panther has already left Disney’s Beauty and the Beast ($174.7M) and WB/DC’s Batman v. Superman ($166M) in the dust to become the biggest pre-summer opener of all-time.

This is excellent news. Given the similarly unprecedented success of Wonder Woman, Marvel is clearly going to be doubling down, and doubling down again, on even more diversity.

The door to the disruption of the comics industry just opened that much wider.

It's going to be amusing to read the revisionist reviews when all the critics finally sober up. I expect we will see an arc similar to the one we see after every Star Wars movie.

OMG! It's the BEST since EMPIRE!

Okay, maybe we got a little carried away. But it's still really good!

Well, I mean, it's all right.

Actually, there are a lot of things that don't make any sense.

And are pretty lame, come to think of it.

This movie sucks.

Now, what was the second one called? No, the second of the new ones, not the prequels.

You know it's going to happen. The whispers about the first major plot holes have already begun. And speaking of Star Wars movies, as of Day 62, The Last Jedi had officially fallen $300 million behind its predecessor in domestic box office.

TFA: Day 63 $917.8
TLJ: Day 63 $617.4

Both my December 19th prediction and my January 12th projection of $624 million domestic are looking pretty good. Including the foreign box office, TLJ is currently $745.8 million short. Convergence is expensive.

Because gender equality is more important than winning wars. And why not? Seriously. It's not as if the US Armed Forces have been defending the nation or its borders for the last 60 years anyhow.

The Marine Corps has made a major change to its Infantry Officer Course. The first big challenge for many was a test of physical fitness. If you passed, you moved on. If you didn’t, you washed out. The test was especially difficult for women who had to meet the same standard as the men. Not anymore.

The Infantry Officer Course now uses the physical fitness test as an exercise, and not a pass/fail requirement.

Officials with Marine Corps Training and Education Command told Military.com “that Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller had made a decision in November to transform the test from a high-stakes hurdle to an assessment from which students can drop without risking their place in the course.”

“[Neller] approved modifications to the IOC [program of instruction] to better tie student evaluation and graduation requirements to published infantry training and readiness manual, military occupational specialty specific performance standards, and operating force requirements,” TECOM officials said in a statement.

As the student evaluation and graduation requirements gravitate towards female-friendly subjective homework and classroom attendance standards rather than objective physical standards, we can expect women to increasingly not only complete the Infantry Officer Course, but excel in it. Which, over time, will lead to the consequences explained by Martin Van Creveld and quoted in SJWs Always Double Down:

As Martin van Creveld, the Israeli military historian has noted, the more women enter any professional field, the more men leave it. And as the men depart, so to do the prestige and the economic rewards provided by the field. This creates a vicious cycle that both expels existing men from the field while repelling new men from entering it.

If the universities can be considered a reliable model, we're about three decades away from a majority female Marine Corps. No wonder China is content to patiently wait for its opportunity. This marks the second step in the end of the USMC's historical prestige. Even current female Marine officers understand this.

“Changing this rite of passage will be doing female Marines no favors in trying to be infantry officers,” Marine 2nd Lt. Emma Stokien, a Marine Corps intelligence officer, wrote. “Female Marines often have to work much harder than their peers to earn the same respect, and entering the infantry under the dark cloud of even perceived lowered standards will make this a practically impossible challenge and potentially cause real harm to unit cohesion and the faith between leader and led.”

Permitting women to join the Marine Corps was the first mistake. Unqualified female officers are the second one. But the empire is in decline, and so these events are not even remotely surprising. There will be more unnecessary mistakes in the future and they will be more and more disastrous, until the empire "unexpectedly" crumbles for "no reason at all."

Friday, February 16, 2018

Netflix has always been a shady operation, in my opinion. Their streaming business depended entirely upon someone else being forced to pay for most of the enormous bandwidth costs that their delivery system required. They got away with that one somehow, but I think it is unlikely that they'll be able to get away with alleged accounting practices that sound creative even by Hollywood's infamous standards.

This almost-TV network will pay at least twice what anyone else will for original content, whether you are selling a TV series, film – or even a stand-up comedy special.

The modern version of this scheme is enabled by a very unique form of accounting hocus-pocus, used by the almost-TV network. This accounting magic allows the company to claim that it is generating a “profit”. The reality is that this company burned through about $2 billion of cash last year, and will burn through another $3-4 billion in 2018.

This almost-TV network simply depreciates the value of all these films and shows over a far longer period of time than everyone else ever has. The company claims that their definition is legit, because the content is in their own “library”.

This almost-TV network is the 1st to deliver its content in a unique way, using relatively new technology – they were the first company to do it this way on a large scale. This means the Feds presently have no basis to challenge the almost TV-network on its suspect accounting, because the new “definition” has not been proven wrong. Only the ultimate financial collapse of the company will do that. In the meantime, the accountants and auditors go along for the ride and happily collect their fees, as they always do.

The almost-TV network tells its stockholders that it can taper down this spending spigot in the future, to generate actual cash. This is an obvious lie, in 2 ways.

If the almost-TV network ever cut spending and new content, many subscribers would drop them like a hot potato. Second, the company is making many big public commitments to spend money like drunken sailors, for several years into the future. The huge deal they made this week – that is just to the head guy alone. It doesn’t count a penny towards what it will cost to make his shows.

This sort of corporate shadiness is yet another sign that the end of the most recent credit bubble is in sight. A commenter on the site had some interesting insights on the Netflix situation by making two historical comparisons.

The AOL fraud was based on an accounting scam where they capitalized all marketing expenses. All those CD-ROMs that you got through the mail and in magazines was claimed by AOL as a "research and development" cost. So could be amortized over seven years instead of charging them against that years accounts. So AOL not only never made any profit but had actually lost huge amounts of money. Which Time Warner discovered the hard way after the merger. Many billions of losses. Its not like everyone in the business at the time did not know that AOL was based on fraud.

The Softkey/Learning Company fraud was based on acquiring larger and larger software companies and greatly inflating the "goodwill" of the acquired companies. So their balance sheet looked great and the companies they acquired were cash rich and had great cash flows. But the scam needed bigger and bigger companies to acquire, like all Ponzi schemes, and when they ran out of companies to gobble up they sold the whole festering sack of shit to the nearest clueless idiot with money. In this case Mattel. Who a few years later had to write off $3 billion in losses and almost went bankrupt.

A friend of mine was involved with a very large corporation that grew through credit-funded mergers; his company was acquired several steps before the final end game. The company had billions in revenue and was worth many multiples more when it finally imploded. It was an extremely educational experience to be able to witness the whole thing gradually play out from the outside.

What good would more gun control laws do when the FBI would ignore every reported violation of them anyhow?

FBI director must resign: Florida governor demands Fed head step down after Bureau reveals it did not investigate Nikolas Cruz despite being warned of stockpiled guns and desire to kill SIX Weeks before massacre.

The FBI released a statement on Friday revealing that a call came in alerting the agency about Nikolas Cruz being a possible threat in early January. 'The caller provided information about Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts,' said Cruz. That same caller, who contacted the FBI on January 5 via their Public Access Line, also shared their belief that Cruz might conduct a school shooting The FBI did not investigate despite the 'potential threat to life,' and failed to even alert the Miami field office about the call.

Governor Rick Scott of Florida is now calling on Christopher Wrey to resign as director of the FBI and parents of victims voiced their anger at funerals 'Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn't going to cut it,' said Governor Scott.

Not only that, but police were called out to Cruz's house THIRTY-NINE times. So let's not pretend that the police are going to do one single thing to stop a messed-up lunatic like that, whether there was one more law or one hundred more laws on the books.

The police are not about protection or prevention. They are merely there to clean up after the fact and make the community feel as if the authorities are doing something.

If you are an Alt★Hero backer or a subscriber to the Arkhaven mailing list, be sure to check your email. We just sent out some VERY important news that you will not want to miss. In addition to a progress update, we have introduced a new character who will be appearing in future issues as well as a detailed update on the design of the role-playing game.

There are very interesting times ahead, because I now have good reason to believe that the Arkhaven project is going to be at least an order of magnitude more disruptive than I had previously imagined.

But regardless of whether our prognostications prove to be astute or not, we are continuing to work hard towards the launch of the initial Alt★Hero and Chuck Dixon's Avalon issues in March.

Against ISIS, we are waging a war using the most sophisticated and interconnected combat power in history. But our real advantage is the intellect, innovation, creativity and courage of our troops. If any among us thinks these qualities are defined by race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or identity or any other factor of the human condition, then the Air Force Academy and our military is not the place for them.

The link between diversity and victory does not exist in the abstract. It is real and has been proven throughout history. From 1941 to 1946, in the small, segregated town of Tuskegee, Alabama, black Americans trained to become fighter pilots. They would form the 332nd Fighter Group and serve in the Europe, where they overcame the racism inherent in the WWII Army Air Corps to amass an impressive record.

Over their 15,000 sorties, the Tuskegee Airmen's professionalism, valor and airmanship earned the respect of the B-17 crews they escorted. More importantly, the bomber formations they guarded suffered fewer losses than those escorted by other units, which meant more of their bombers made it to their targets in Germany and back home again. They made the 15th Air Force more lethal, and their contributions were pivotal in the outcome of World War II.

While the Tuskegee Airmen would influence the battle in Europe, the Native American Code Talkers would help the Allies prevail in the Pacific. Approximately 500 Native Americans would enlist in the United States Marine Corps during World War II and use their native languages to encrypt vital communications during combat.

Since the code was just an application of their native language it did not require special equipment and it improved the speed and accuracy of communication on the battlefield. Furthermore, this unique code, which utilized the diversity of America, was never cracked and allowed innumerable critical communications to take place among the Allies, free from the fear of information falling into the Axis powers' hands.

The Allies eventually broke the code of the German Enigma machines, intercepting and exploiting vital information -- a secure communications disparity that would prove crucial to Allied victory in the war. Leveraging our unique talents born from our diversity can offer advantages that even the greatest technologies cannot overcome.

Women would also play a key role during and after the war. More than 1,000 Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as WASPs, were stationed at 122 air bases across the United States. Though limited by the sexism of the time, and barred from front-line roles, they still flew more than 60 million miles in almost every type of aircraft flown by the US Army Air Forces. By testing and delivering aircraft, these women flew thousands of aircraft to the front lines, where they would be flown by their male counterparts in combat. WASPS fought for decades for recognition despite their courageous service; 38 WASPs lost their lives during the war.

After World War II, the military's stark lack of diversity would hinder the nation's efforts during the Cold War. The Soviet Union had leapt ahead in space exploration with the surprise launch of Sputnik and cemented their dominance when Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that the American space program supplanted the Soviets after female and African-American mathematicians and engineers were integrated into the workforce.

It's probably a good thing that laser anti-aircraft are about to make the Air Force an irrelevant and outmoded branch of the U.S. military. Because if this guy is in charge of training future pilots, the USAF is about to crash and burn.

His examples of the importance of diversity to a military are simply laughable. The 15th Air Force accomplished nothing except murdering German civilians and didn't even slow down German production, which increased throughout the massive strategic bombing campaign. The Navajo codetalkers wouldn't have had a separate language to utilize if they had not been a nation apart. If WASPs had been permitted to fly in combat during WWII, a lot more than 38 of them would have died. And female and African-American mathematicians and engineers had virtually nothing to do with any of the Cold War-era space achievements.

If you cannot see that the US is an empire in steep decline, you simply are not paying any attention.

Like clockwork, the media is using the latest school shooting to try to create an unlikely groundswell for unconstitutional federal gun control. And like every other time, it will completely fail to the point that even Democrats won't actually push for it.

The devastated mother of a 14-year-old girl killed in the Florida high mass shooting has unleashed on President Donald Trump, screaming for him to do something to prevent another massacre.

'President Trump, please do something! Do something. Action! We need it now! These kids need safety now,' a grieving Lori Alhadeff begged during a live CNN broadcast on Thursday.

As tears streamed down her face, Alhadeff told of how her daughter Alyssa was among the 17 shot dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday. She glared into the cameras as she furiously demanded answers and urged Trump to take action on gun control.

Alyssa was among the 17 shot dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday

'How do we allow a gunman to come into our children's school? How do they get through security? What security is there?' she yelled. 'The gunman - a crazy person - just walks right into the school, knocks down the window of my child's door and starts shooting. Shooting her! And killing her! I just spent the last two hours putting together the burial arrangements for my daughter's funeral, who is 14. President Trump, you say what can you do? You can stop the guns from getting into these children's hands. What can you do? You can do a lot! This is not fair to our families and our children to go to school and have to get killed!'

While one has to make allowances for a distraught mother (assuming she is not a crisis actor, which is far from a certain assumption), the idea that the President of the USA can do anything to prevent people from shooting up schools is absurd. Why not simply have him ban poverty, drugs, and teenage pregnancy while he's at it? It's not like there is a law against murder or anything, right?

The truth is that there is only one solution to the problem of school shootings: homeschool.

Although not putting boys on psychotropic medications would probably help.

In the meantime, if the God-Emperor were cruel, he would use the heightened media scrutiny to challenge Democrats to publicly endorse strict gun control legislation. If Democrats are so concerned about school shootings and the American people are so desperate for gun control, why aren't House and Senate Democrats doing anything about it? The answer is that the Democrats don't want to be completely wiped out in the Congressional elections later this year.

And as long as the media is paying attention to guns, President Trump should take the opportunity to declare no gun control will ever be passed on his watch and that any state that does not respect the carry laws of other states will no longer receive federal highway funding. Such a forthright statement, and the massively popular response it would generate, would crush the gun control movement for a generation.

As for the possibility that the woman is a crisis actor, I have to say that the last sentence of the quote rings very, very false to me. I am a professional editor. I know poorly written dialogue when I see it. Also, actual mothers in distress don't usually say things like "my child's door". I can't say it's fake with certainty, but I can certainly say it looks more than a little sketchy when read cold.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

This is a selection from John C. Wright's incredible classic, AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND. If you have not yet had the very great pleasure of reading it yet, you are fortunate indeed. Read the reviews, lest you think I exaggerate.

The monsters still howl for him, months after he fell. In the gloom, I can sometimes see one or the other, sometimes both together, wolfish beasts with leathery hides and dark bristles, and they raise their grinning, shark-like mouths to the black clouds above and utter their cries.

Impossible that such horrors could love a child of Man, and be faithful; impossible. Yet they do not molest the body, nor even approach it.

My brother Polynices lies in plain view on the baked black salt of the Night Land. The hollow where he fell has a smoke-hole in its center, some five yards beyond his motionless, outflung hand, and the smolder from the hole casts a light across his form.

He lies many miles below the armored windows of our redoubt, but even so, the spy-glasses and instruments of the Monstruwacans (those scholars whose business it is to watch the horrors of the Night) leaning from the balconies, can pick out minute details.

The fingers of his gauntlet are stretched out, as if he were reaching for the little warmth of the smoke hole as he perished. He lays on a slight incline, for a circle of salty mineral surrounds the smoke hole and slopes toward it. His boots are toward us. The smoke hole is to his left. His helmet fell from his head, and rolled a yard down the salty slope. The little trail the helmet made as it fell is still visible. There has been no wind, no earth tremors, to disturb the salt crystals and erode the trail. The haft and great wheel of his disk-ax weapon lay to his right, and the shadow of his body falls across it, making details difficult to make out, even under the immense magnifications of the Great Spy Glass. The hair I used to tousle has continued to grow as the months have passed, and now falls across the shoulder-plates of his armor and spills onto the salt. I cannot see those wild locks without wishing for my comb of nacre to put the tangles right. He was always careless of his appearance.

Because of the angle of his fall, I cannot make out his face. Did he die calmly? Or is a rictus of hollow terror and despair frozen forever on his features?

His right forearm is hidden under his body, as if his teeth were seeking the lethal capsule buried under the flesh of his forearm when he fell. Did he fall too swiftly to bite the capsule, and slay himself wholesomely, before his soul and spirit were Destroyed?

There is no blood visible. There is no sign of wounds.

When we were young, my brother and I found a long-deserted balcony lock, and from a previous life he remembered the word to open it.

He and I would climb through the broken armor of the window in one of the abandoned cities in the base level of the Pyramid. With fearless hearts and unsteady feet we would pick among the tilted slabs of imperishable metal, and find a little niche, about five hundred yards above the Night Land, open to the thin air and stinking fumes. We would sit with our lunch basket and spyglass on the corroded lip of some ancient corbel, our legs dangling and kicking above the smoke and darkness of the Land, and we would hear the voices of monsters muttering and hissing underfoot, see the glinting eyes of remote and cyclopean faces, or feel the dull throb of their malice beating against the sheath of energized air surrounding the Pyramid.

There was a series of irregular stairs leading down and down from a little ways below that spot, but we never dared to venture down.

I remember I wore short-pants then, like a boy’s. During my childhood, before I had a name, I was called Païs or Meirax, or something of the sort; the servants called me Annasa, of course.

Because my father was the Castellan, the nurses and tutors had no credible threat to make when I defied them, or tore my girlish pink bloomers to shreds. Later, when I was old enough to know what grief my antics caused my father, or what pleasure my father’s critics in the Opposition Seats, I dressed more demurely outwardly, though inwardly, I suppose, I was much the same.

From the steles we found on that hidden cleft, at the top of those forbidden stairs, we knew this place had been made by the Labdaciteans, great-grandfather’s people. The locks recognized our life-patterns, and called us by his name.

We knew the tale. Before even grandfather was born, Labdacus eroded the power of the Architects, by making climbing paths not shown on their charts, to run from window to window between the levels, that his loyal retainers might circumvent the blockades, when Architects cut power to the inter-municipal Doors, or grounded the great Lifts. Grandfather Laius, when he came of age, rose to preeminence on the promise that all such unlawful paths and places would be destroyed, and the Last Redoubt brought once more into honest conformity with the Great Central Survey of the Architectural Order.

As an adult, I know the horror of wondering if there is some gallery, portal, or open window, unwatched and unlocked against the subtle malice of the enemy, a hole a spider could wriggle through, or a crack to admit a weft. Even we, young as we were, were scandalized to see the breach of Labdacus. His crime was solid before our eyes, as plain to touch as the smooth hole cut in the armor. The massive, ill-made blocks of crooked stair lead down from it as a blood trail leads down from a wound. But it was a pleasing scandal, and our fear made us grin sickly grins, for it was our great-grandfather who had committed, not a petty crime, but a great one.

We promised each other we would never do anything so wicked as meddle with the walls and wards by which Man lives.

But we were also pleased to have a secret known to none, a place only those of the blood of Labdacus could pass. We considered our promise fulfilled by vowing to tell no one of our find. The idea that we should have immediately sent for the Architects, or the local Officer of the Watch, never crossed our young minds.

We were the children of the Castellan, after all.

Not long after my age of majority, not long after my father’s death and the ascension of Creon to power, I came to tread these same broken slabs of ancient metal again.

This time, my footsteps were not as sure as a thoughtless child’s would have been, nor was my costume as suited for the adventure. I wore a skirt to my ankles and a blouse buttoned to my throat, and my hair was pinned up and coiffed in a fashion I envied when it was forbidden to me, but which was now a bother to dress and maintain. My gloves clutched the corroded wall as I inched in my foolishly heeled shoes across the sloping face of the armor, a dizzying drop to the lands of darkness opening up behind and below my bustle.

The child I had been would not have known me. Païs had been so unafraid, and I was so fearful now.
Once only I looked over my shoulder. In the light of a recent volcano, I could glimpse the tall shadows of two kiln-giants, their heads together as if in consultation. One of them raised a heavy hand and pointed at me, while its lamp-eyed companion nodded. This unnerved me, so I clutched the metal beneath my gloves more firmly, and returned my eyes to the task.

I made it around the last turn and came with relief to the sturdier footing and broader step of the ancient and unused corbel.

Polynices was in his armor, standing where once he’d lunched as a child. The long handle of his disk-ax weapon was in his hand, and he leaned upon it in an attitude of alertness, his head staring down at the darkened Land.

He was listening.

Up from the gloom underfoot came the mournful, haunting sound of a Night-Hound, baying.
Having found his hiding place, I did not wish to speak, lest I startle him. I had the mental image of him dropping his Diskos over the side, or, worse, himself.

He said, “Rightly or wrongly, the dogs are mine, and I must feed them.”

I said quietly, “They are monsters. They are howling because they thirst for your blood, not because they love you.”

Polynices shook his head grimly, not bothering to look back at me. “Draego saved my life from the Abhumans. I fed him from my hand, and he knows not how to eat from any other. See! Even now he will not hunt among the crags and chasms of the Night Land, or worry pale flesh of slug-things from their lightless holes or blind fish from poisoned lakes. He starves, and stands before the gates of the Last Redoubt, and howls his love and sorrow for me. Dracaina is often with him, and joins her weeping voice to his.”

“Monsters. Do you not understand the word? Enemies of Man.”

“Not these. Love can break even the power of the Night. My dogs are my friends.”

“They are not dogs! They are Night-Hounds!”

He said nothing, but listened to the mournful howling of the monsters far below.

On and on they wailed. Once, both Night-Hounds fell silent, when the Great Laughter began to issue from a buried country to the east, a deep trench whose upper crumbling banks are visible from the Last Redoubt. Another time, the Hounds were silenced again when a deep and monstrous Voice from a cold volcano cone called out in a long-forgotten language, uttering a rough shout that traveled and echoed across the Night Land like a clap of thunder, traveling away to the North. The Night-Hounds were hushed for a while, perhaps cowering in terror, but then their howling and lamenting began again.

“I had a dream that you would die.” I told him.

He said, “I will find a way to smuggle food out to them. I do not fear the law.”

The Great Laughter issued from the eastern hills and canyons at that moment, trembling across the strange and barren landscapes of the Night, and this seemed a fitter answer than anything I could devise.

Will Caligan is already hard at work on SAGA OF THE SWAN KNIGHT. He thought some of you might be interested in having a look at his concept of Gil, the Swan Knight's Son.

Some people have been asking about when they're going to start receiving their Alt-Hero rewards. Links to download the first two digital editions will be going out in March, probably closer to the end than to the beginning. Alt-Hero #1 and Avalon #1 are both illustrated and inked, and are being colored now. Please understand that these are MAJOR undertakings, the work will not be done overnight, and we are actually making remarkably fast progress on them. I will continue to keep all the backers updated through the Arkhaven mailing list.

The reason we are releasing other comics such as Right Ho, Jeeves #1 and Quantum Mortis: A Man Disrupted #1 first is because we need to test both the digital and print processes before we publish anything from the campaign. Remember, we have never done ANY of this before. As for Dark Legion Comics, keep in mind that those publications are already-completed projects that are being brought to us for publishing. For example, all 300+ pages of Rebel Dead Revenge are already complete; we will publish the first of the two graphic novels in print when we publish the digital edition of Issue #5.

Kurt Schlichter sternly warns liberals for the 37,479,842nd time that they are now treading DANGEROUSLY near to some very thin ice. Again.

Do you liberals really want new rules allowing violence and terrorism?

Do you liberals really want new rules allowing denormalizing your political opponents?

Do you liberals really want new rules allowing dehumanizing your political opponents?

You may think you do now, but trust me, you really don’t.

Take heed: You are going to hate the new rules.

There is a way out, a way that is obvious to anyone of good faith and common sense, and since it’s always a leftist attacking Republicans, the Democrat leadership needs to lead the way. The way out is to join together with the President and other conservatives and unequivocally reject violence and terror.

Not obliquely.

Not with clichés.

No with a smirk and a wink.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and all the other key Democrat leaders must stand on a stage beside Donald Trump and Don Jr. and say, without qualification that this is unacceptable and wrong.

The "dire warning" column is a longtime staple for conservative columnists. I've been hearing conservatives issuing dire warnings to liberals about the dreadful consequences of their actions for nearly 40 years now. And do you know what I have concluded as a result? Conservatives are not going to do anything at all to resist liberal or government violence, ever. They never have.

They didn't resist when their children were bused. They didn't resist when their schools were secularized. They didn't resist when their country was invaded by 130 million foreigners. They didn't resist when their churches were converged. They didn't resist when their right to carry cash was restricted. They didn't resist when their rights to speech were removed. They didn't resist when their wives left them and divorce-raped them. They didn't resist when their children were kidnapped by judicial fiat.

I no longer believe they will resist even when their guns are confiscated or when their religion is outlawed. What evidence do we have that conservatives will do anything at all except complain about liberals, vote for do-nothing Republicans, and carefully distance themselves from anyone who looks even remotely possible of actually doing anything?

I'm not saying that no one will ever resist gun confiscations. But I am entirely confident that no one who calls himself a conservative will. Conservatives are tough-talking cowards who simply will not disobey whatever they are told by an authority figure is the law. And liberals figured this out a long time ago. That's why they targeted all of the positions of perceived authority. That's why they have to hide their smiles every time someone like Kurt Schlichter waxes dramatic and solemnly warns them... again. Why would anyone expect them to heed yet another dire warning, when every single previous warning has proved to be an empty one?

The last conservative will be still be shaking his finger and warning the cannibals that they had better watch out if they don't change their ways or else while he is being thrown into the boiling cookpot.

Arkhaven movies. Why? Because now that it has seen its comic sales decline on the strength of its commitment to diversity, Marvel is doubling down and is going to make a stronger commitment to diversity in its movies:

Feige acknowledged that not having to think about diversity and representation is something that easy to take for granted that all cinematic heroes look like him ie: a white male.

“It’s something that’s easy to take for granted, growing up in the United States as a white male, that my cinematic heroes look like me,” said Feige. “I never thought they looked exactly like me, because I’m not a big athletic hero, but they do. It’s something that over the course of these ten years, having a certain amount of power over what type of movies are made and what type of actors we hire, I want everybody to have that feeling. We don’t take it for granted that people want to see themselves reflected in our heroes and our characters. That’s been the case in the comics for years, and, finally, that’s the case in the movies, and will only continue from here.”

Feige just did something that a lot of people are incapable of doing; he acknowledge how easy it is to forget about diversity and representation when they don’t effect you. He “checked his privilege” to use a term that’s been overused and misunderstood. It’s the same with racism or homophobia or any other form of prejudice; just because it doesn’t personally effect you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. The fact that Feige can acknowledge that sometimes he forgets is important because that is the first step to being truly aware.

I look forward to my first conversation several years from now with a well-established cinematic figure who is duly horrified by my near-complete lack of interest in, or knowledge of, film history, techniques, directors, producers, screenwriters, traditions, and culture.

Q: "How can you possibly expect to be successful when you don't know or care about the industry?"

Research over decades on thousands of men shows that those who harass or assault women often have a combination of two distinct sets of personality characteristics, and that these then become amplified by power, says Neil Malamuth, a professor of psychology and communication at the University of California, Los Angeles. Psychologists call these “hostile masculinity” and “impersonal sexuality.”

Men with “hostile masculinity” find power over women to be a sexual turn-on. They feel anger at being rejected by a woman. This is something that researchers believe probably happened to them a lot when they were young. They justify their aggression and are often narcissists.

Men with “impersonal sexuality” prefer sex without intimacy or a close connection, which often leads them to seek promiscuous sex or multiple partners. Often, but not always, this type of person has had a difficult home environment as a child, with abuse or violence, or they had some anti-social tendencies as adolescents....

“It’s not automatic; it’s not that power corrupts,” says UCLA’s Dr. Malamuth. “It’s a certain type of man who uses his power in this way.”

Dr. Malamuth says he has new, unpublished research that shows that men who are aggressive toward women are more likely to look for or create a situation where women are more vulnerable. So it’s no coincidence that they are the ones who seek out power—especially over young, beautiful women, who were the ones who tended to reject them when they were young. Then their natural aggression makes them more likely to achieve it.

“The bad behavior is a defense against being powerless,” says Dr. Kilmartin, of University of Mary Washington.

Narcissism, anger, frequent rejection by women, difficult childhoods, and anti-social tendencies. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The social scientists are still trying to spin this and blame it on more conservative and traditional men, of course.

Men who harass or assault women also tend to have sexist attitudes, such as an opposition to gender equality or a favoring of traditional roles for women, says John Pryor, a distinguished professor of psychology emeritus at Illinois State University.

But as we've seen, this simply isn't true. Again and again and again, we're seeing that the pattern of sexual harassment is based on male socio-sexuality, not ideology. The combination of childhood trauma, unattractiveness, low social rank, and intelligence with later-in-life success that provides power over others is a severely toxic one. Sexual harassment is what the actual revenge of the nerds looks like. Remember that even in the movie of that name, the gamma nerd "who thinks about sex all the time" seduces the cheerleader under the false pretense of being a literal Alpha.

Gammas never handle power well, whether they become the head of state, the head of a film studio, or just the manager of the sales department.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Seventeen people were shot to death and several others wounded Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in a horrific episode of school violence that ended with the arrest of a former student.... Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said 17 people were killed, including both students and adults, with two killed outside the school, one in the street, 12 inside the school and two dying from their wounds at the hospital.

The suspect was identified as Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former student. He used an AR-15 rifle and multiple magazines, the sheriff said. Investigators have begun analyzing Cruz’s social media accounts, which the sheriff said contained material that was “very, very disturbing.”

The media will focus on the AR-15, of course. But the more significant questions is: what mind-altering drugs was he on?

1920s Chicago, where the criminal underworld is more than just vice, racketeering, and bootlegging.

Emilio Enzo and his associates have just emerged victorious out of a brutal territory dispute with The Skarface and his gang, the Chicago Outfit. Amidst the conflict, Emilio and his group have discovered just how entrenched the criminal underworld is in the occult and supernatural. Using hidden pathways to our world, forces of pure evil have worked in secret to maintain their stronghold on Chicago. Now they are back to take revenge on the one man willing to challenge their reign by stealing the soul of his girlfriend, Katherine “Kat” Allen.

While visiting an old shop full of oddities, Emilio comes across a centuries old ribbon for a typewriter with a strange backstory. After bringing the ribbon home and spooling it into his machine, it begins to communicate with Emilio at night.What link does the original owner of this ribbon have to the disappearance of Kat? Who is Remì Geroux? Emilio Enzo will see just how far he will have to go into the unknown to get back the soul of his lost love. 1920s Prohibition era Chicago collides with the bizarre in this debut graphic novel from Brandon Fiadino.
We're very pleased to announce that Dark Legion Comics has signed Brandon Fiardino's Chicago Typewriter: The Red Ribbon. A digital release is anticipated in March, followed by a print release in April. It was the basis for the 2017 Korean movie of the same name.

Although SJWs are trying to characterize DC Entertainment's new social media guidelines as a means of reining in Ethan Van Sciver, the reality is that DC is belatedly attempting to muzzle its SJWs before they do any more damage to the brand:

Dear DC Talent Community –

The comic book industry is a very special creative community dedicated to telling epic and legendary stories of action, heroism and intrigue with a rich and diverse portfolio of characters. Both DC’s employees, as well as its extended family of freelance talent, contribute to our success and are direct reflections of our company, characters and comics.

As such, DC expects that its employees and freelance talent community maintain a high level of professionalism as well as reasonable and respectful behavior when engaging in online activities. Comments that may be considered defamatory, libelous, discriminatory, harassing, hateful, or that incite violence are unacceptable and may result in civil or criminal action.

In addition, comments that may be considered insulting, cruel, rude, crass and mean spirited are against company policy and guidelines. We ask, and expect, that you will help to create an online environment that is inclusive, supportive and safe.

Below you will find the most current version of the company’s social media guidelines. If you have any questions, please contact DC Talent Relations department so that we can be of assistance.

DC Entertainment Social Media Guidelines for Talent

This policy has been developed to empower DC Talent to participate in social media activities, represent their creative endeavors well and share their passion for DC’s characters, stories and brands. We recognize the vital importance of online social communities and this policy reflects our commitment to the best possible use of social media. Below are DC’s recommended guidelines when partaking in social media.

Stay positive when you post and we also recommend that you avoid negative comments in this very public forum.

You may want to refrain from engaging with individuals who may be speaking negatively about you, other talent, DC, our fans and the comics industry as this is a no-win situation.

If there has been a personal threat to you or those around you then in addition to alerting DC, please involve the proper law enforcement authorities.

Use good judgment when posting, reposting and liking comments, photos and videos as these may have unintended consequences.

Talent should take special care when using social media to ensure that comments and postings made by you are not associated with DC.

Under all circumstances, please indicate that you do work for DC, but that your comments are your own and do not reflect those of the company.

The internet is permanent regardless of “privacy settings” or other limits you may try to place on your posting. Think before you post, comment, retweet or like something.

Do not reveal plot points, storylines or launch timing — including photos or video of in-progress assets, artwork, story outlines, scripts, panels, announcement details, etc. without coordinating with DC Publicity. Members of the press may follow you on social media, and your posts can — and probably will — become news.

Don’t break news on social media. If you have any questions on what you can or can’t post on any platform, DC Publicity or Talent Relations departments are available to assist.

If you’d like to share DC news on your social pages, we recommend sharing news from DCComics.com, DCE-sanctioned social media pages and other news widely reported on credible news outlets.

If you are contacted by members of the press or asked to participate in an interview about your work for DC, please coordinate this with the DC Publicity department so that news can be rolled out in an orchestrated fashion and elevated on DC digital and social channels as well.

And finally, we recognize that there can be a dark side to social media and to that end if you feel that you are being harassed or bullied through social media channels because of your work for DC or your association with us, please feel free to contact the DC Talent Relations department so that we can be of assistance.

Needless to say, it won't work. The Comics-SJWs are already trying to play the victim and absurdly wringing their hands about "a chilling affect" on free speech... as if there is anyone on the planet outside of North Korea who hates genuinely free speech more than they do.

DC guidelines to freelancers on using social media "...comments that may be considered insulting, cruel, rude, crass and mean spirited are against company policy and guidelines."It's been a while since I worked for DC so I guess I can still say "Fuck you, Trump!"- David HineWhile on the surface it seems like a good step, I think it could have a chilling affect on the free speech of their employees and freelancers. Also- I’m afraid it’s just too broad. There is no mention of homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or racism. They use catch-all phrases, but it leaves a lot open to interpretation. While obviously they can’t write an “Anti-Ethan Van Sciver policy” (and let’s be clear, Ethan is what it is in response to) I think you’ll see a lot of people who just post political stuff get swept up in this.
- Tim Hoyle

Others contacted me worried that all sorts of people could go through DC Comics creator social media history looking for anything to use against them.
- Rich Johnston

This is why SJWs always prefer nebulous Codes of Conduct and Community Police to clear, objective guidelines that can be impartially applied. You see, the "rules" are supposed to be applied only to those who violate the Narrative, while allowing complete freedom of action to the SJWs.

This is the sort of thing you're missing if you're not signed up for the Daily Meme Wars. Think of it as a fifth daily blog post of sorts. It's also a good way to get a regular update on the latest little stuff from Castalia House that doesn't justify a full Book Club mailing.

Anyhow, this is the future of which the equalitarians, liberals, and progressives have dreamed for decades. It is the future they demanded. And yet, somehow, they don't seem to be quite as happy about it as one might have thought.

Oh, that's right. They thought they were going to be in charge, and that all those very equal minorities were going to gratefully follow their lead. It turns out that if you tell people that they are your equal, they might well believe you and decide that you have no business telling them what to do.

The Weekly Standard wants to repair the failing institution of marriage. But not at the price of giving up feminism:

To restore marriage, people must again observe the two main conventions that used to support the institution. First, adults should not form intimate ties for very long without committing themselves in some formal way to remain together for life. That implies not having affairs and not divorcing except in unusual circumstances. Second, children should be born and brought up within marriage, meaning with parents in a committed relationship, rather than with single parents.

The problem, of course, is that these conventions run afoul of our modern fetish for “tolerance.” Marriage and the family are now seen as a private realm where nothing—government, the community, even the private opinions of fellow citizens—should be allowed to pass judgment, let alone intervene.

But marriage isn’t only a private concern. One reason lower-income society is falling apart is that the decline of marriage leaves too few adults who are willing and able to help each other. Spouses who cannot get along within the family also cannot contribute much to the wider society. They have little to offer others in the joint work of building strong communities. Government and nonprofit bodies attempt to fill the void, but even they cannot substitute for families based on strong adult commitments.

Because of the social costs of nonmarriage, “tolerance,” while laudable, should not be society’s only goal. Instead, we should be working to strike a balance between free choice and the promotion of the stable, supportive environments that create the best outcomes for both children and adults.

Any return to marriage norms, however, must take into account the feminist critique. Two generations ago, wives were often subordinate to their husbands or blindly deferred to them. Most advocates of marriage today recognize that the institution can be rebuilt only if it is done so on more egalitarian lines. Husbands and wives must be partners, without either ruling over the other. This does assume, however, that the spouses can work out differences more openly than they often did in the past.

It's really rather striking the way that so many observers are concerned about the symptoms while determinedly clinging to the disease. It's like watching a doctor trying to make the patient feel as comfortable as possible while refusing to give him the medicine that will cure him.

Any return to marriage norms will require rejecting feminism entirely. Destroying marriage was, and is, one of the primary goals of feminism. Destroying society and Western civilization is merely a fortuitous bonus as far as feminists are concerned.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

The Washington Post today announced Megan McArdle will be a columnist for the Opinions section starting March 1. In this role, McArdle will write columns with a focus on the intersection of economics, business and public policy.

“Megan offers one of the liveliest, smartest, least predictable takes on policy, politics and everything else, from the history of washing machines to essential rules for living,” said Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page editor for The Post. “We’re excited to share her perspective and her distinctive voice with our readers and to deepen our coverage of economic and financial topics.”

The sad truth is that despite her long list of columns and articles proving otherwise, McCardle really does look pretty smart in comparison to everyone else at the Post. But it is amusing to see the Left try to claw back the audiences they have lost by doing the absolute least they can possibly rationalize.

It's not going to work. Of course, they could put Cernovich in charge of the editorial page and Milo at the helm of the Lifestyle page and I'm not sure that would be enough.

While watching TV advertising, I often get the feeling I’m being lectured to.

The Super Bowl yesterday was a series of lectures with this message: “As often as we’ve tried to educate you people out there in flyover country, you remain resistant to our efforts to civilize you. We continue to detect traces of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in your makeup; so it’s our moral imperative to disabuse you of those ideas.”

If a young girl and a boy are in some kind of competition—running, shooting a basket, doing a science project—put your money on the girl. She’s a shoe-in. It’s all terribly cute, of course. Look, the girl beat the boy! But the schtick is getting a bit tired. Ad folk, lay off the ideology for a bit, for goodness sakes, and let the poor boy win every now and then.

There seems to be some kind of law in advertising that if you show two kids, one of them has to be black. The rule is so strict that there must be some kind of jail (probably on Madison Avenue) for those who break this law. In a group of seven or so, three or four will be “people of color.” They’ll sometimes show an Asian in a group shot, but Asians just don’t count as much as blacks. We’re being lectured to, folks.

In the Super Bowl T-Mobile ad showing a bunch of babies, more than half of which were “babies of color,” we were told that “Some people will be threatened” by the varied hues of these babies. “But,” we’re told, “you will love who you want.” Why do I get the feeling that person who considered himself enlightened was scolding me for my benighted ways?

The Kraft ad in the Super Bowl featured gay couples and interracial couples. “There is no right way to family” (using “family” as a verb) we were told by an ad that obviously was tweaking the noses of the unenlightened.

One can't really call it "Corporate America" anymore. There is nothing American about it.

Now, I am a supporter of the state of Israel. I believe Israel has the right to exist. It has legitimately settled the land on which the nation presently resides and holds it by right of conquest, twice over. Like the Prime Minister of Israel, I think all Jews should return to their national homeland at their earliest convenience, both for their own sake and for the sake of the nations in which they currently reside. I do not believe the Jews are good for America nor do I believe that attempting to utilize American power for their own ends will prove to be good for the Jews in the long run. The present situation is an obvious lose-lose scenario, no matter what soaring rhetorical appeals anyone tries to make or how grotesquely they attempt to rewrite and misrepresent American history.

And as a friend of Israel, I will not hesitate to state that the ongoing attempt by AIPAC to directly assault the U.S. Constitution and the 1st Amendment is absolutely disastrous for both Americans and Jews, and is very dangerous for both the USA and for Israel. There is little more that the Jews could do to render themselves more disgusting and abhorrent to the average American, with the sole exception of directly attacking the 2nd Amendment, than supporting the 25 state and federal laws that now attack the right of U.S. citizens to speak against Israel.

Here in the United States, the friends of Israel appear to believe that anyone who is unwilling to do business with Israel or even with the territories that it has illegally occupied should not be allowed to do business in any capacity with federal, state or even local governments. Constitutional guarantees of freedom of association for every American are apparently not valid if one particular highly favored foreign country is involved.

Twenty-four states now have legislation sanctioning those who criticize or boycott Israel. And one particular pending piece of federal legislation that is also continuing to make its way through the Senate would far exceed what is happening at the state level and would set a new standard for deference to Israeli interests on the part of the national government. It would criminalize any U.S. citizen “engaged in interstate or foreign commerce” who supports a boycott of Israel or who even goes about “requesting the furnishing of information” regarding it, with penalties enforced through amendments of two existing laws, the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Export-Import Act of 1945, that include potential fines of between $250,000 and $1 million and up to 20 years in prison

According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, the Senate bill was drafted with the assistance of AIPAC. The legislation, which would almost certainly be overturned as unconstitutional if it ever does in fact become law, is particularly dangerous and goes well beyond any previous pro-Israeli legislation as it essentially denies free of expression when the subject is Israel.

Israel is particularly fearful of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement because its non-violence is attractive to college students, including many young Jews, who would not otherwise get involved on the issue. Benjamin Netanyahu and his government clearly understand, correctly, that BDS can do more damage than any number of terrorist attacks, as it challenges the actual legitimacy of the Israeli government and its colonizing activity in Palestine.

I don't believe in boycotting Israel. I am proud to edit and publish Israel's greatest military historian, who also happens to be one of the greatest minds in military history; in the late Jerry Pournelle's words, "a necessary addendum to Clausewitz." In fact, I am happy to announce that Castalia House will be publishing a special hardcover edition of Martin van Creveld's Pussycats later this year.

That being said, the inability of so many Jews to understand that using government power to try to limit the unalienable rights of Americans makes them the enemy of every self-respecting American, regardless of his politics or ideology, only underscores the observable fact that Jews are a separate nation, a distinct nation with their own culture, religion, language, traditions and values, and makes it clear that their ideals are intrinsically incompatible with the ideals of the American nation.

A Utah mother is concerned after finding out her child couldn’t reject a classmate’s invitation to dance at a Valentine’s Day school party because it would be against school rules.

Natalie Richard, whose daughter is in sixth grade at Kanesville Elementary School in Weber County, told Fox 13 Salt Lake City that she was shocked to hear her child tell her she couldn’t tell a fellow student “no” if he asked her to dance at the upcoming event.

Confused, Richard told her daughter that she was “misunderstanding” the situation, because “that’s not how it is.”

The daughter’s teacher, however, confirmed to Richard that, in fact, her daughter “has to say yes” and “has to accept” such a proposal.

Still concerned, Richard took her plight to the school principal — who “basically just said they’ve had this dance set up this way for a long time and they’ve never had any concern before.”

Of course the school has to set rules like this for children. Otherwise, all the kids will all just stand around and watch as the three most popular boys and their girlfriends dance. It's tough enough for a junior high boy to publicly ask a girl to dance even if she has to say yes. Throw in the possibility of actual rejection - as opposed to sighs, rolled eyes, and snide comments - and ain't nobody dancing.

The alternative, of course, is the highly efficient way our fifth-grade dance teacher did it. Line up the boys in one row, the girls in another, both by height. No cutting or exchanging. Congratulations, you have a partner. Try not to step on her toes.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Last week, Bleeding Cool ran a piece looking at the Omaze charity campaign to help fund GLSEN, an organization that seeks to end discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in schools.

The idea was people donate $10, and one lucky person gets drawn into an upcoming issue of X-Men. X-Men Blue, probably, a comic with queer representation in the team. The winners would also receive the original artwork from their appearance and a signed copy of the comic.

I am literally shaking. But fortunately, this deplorable decision paves the way for Rainbow of the Global Justice Initiative to claim his rightful place as the one true gay icon in comics.

When reached for comment, Rainbow was dancing shirtless to techno music in a Berlin disco. He said, "WOOOOOOOH!"

Natalia Osten-Sacken: Rebecca, you’ve worked many years with refugees and immigrants, you’re a well-known human rights activist. Already before the big wave of immigration in 2015, you were well known for fighting for unlimited admission of these people to Germany. What influenced the change of your views?

Rebecca Sommer: I would like to point out that I have never fought for “unlimited” admission of migrants, because it is impossible for any country to adopt infinitely. I am a humanist and human rights activist. The first years I believed that people who come here are real refugees, happy that they will be safe now and that they will show a good faith in order to adapt here and to integrate. But with time, an unpleasant awakening came about step by step. The reasons for this were so complex that I just couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Rebecca, you’ve worked many years with refugees and immigrants, what influenced the change of your views?

Looking back through the years of repetitive experiences and myself in my work environment as a volunteer, I had to admit to myself that when it comes to Muslim refugees, they have grown up with completely different values, into which they have been brainwashed and are indoctrinated by Islam, and have no intention of adopting our values — worse, they look at us, unbelievers with superiority and arrogance.

You’ve also worked in refugee shelters. What caught your eye?

The sexual molesting of volunteers happens all the time, but none of us has ever reported such a case to the police because none of us wanted to be seen as an opponent of refugees and cause problems for the centre.

And what has emerged from your tracking of the progress of immigrants?

A woman has no human value, she is perceived as a sexual object and not as a partner

What would you like to convey to Poland and Poles?

Stay relentless in your resistance against the European Union breaking the rights of individual nations – in this case against the relocation of refugees forced from outside.[by the EU]. Every country and nation has the right to choose their guests. No country should have to give up the right to self-determination. People within their country have the right to rule themselves, without interference from outside. You have the right to determine your own political path and status, and be free from outside pressure. Do not lose your identity, no nation, group, ethnic group, be it Italians, French or Poles, will survive if you don’t isolate yourself in a sensible way, in accordance with your interests.

German women lament their growing social isolation. But is it enough to get them to stop virtue-signaling, stop condemning the Alt-Right, and abandon the suicidal Left in favor of nationalism and the West?

Do you still feel safe as a woman in your country and how did, what happened in Cologne, affect you?

Like many other women in Germany, I no longer feel safe. The number of women, who visit me or send me messages on Facebook about their fears or concrete experiences with migrants, is growing continuously.

The problem is that instead of publicly communicating their criticisms or protesting on the street against this policy, most people prefer private “solutions”. You do not celebrate anymore or only in male company, you don’t get dressed any more, avoid certain places etc.

It is cruel to see how women keep silent and are unnoticed by the majority of society, while much of the media attention disappears as well. It is in a weakened form what happened in many Islamic countries after the revitalization of conservative Islam.

The woman becomes invisible.

The situation is still easily dealt with. It could be handled inside of three months. But women are going to have to stop bursting into tears and falling for every stupid sob story, and trying to silence the voices and tie the hands of the men with the will to save Western civilization.

The solution is simple. Sink the ships, seal the borders, and send them back.

In private texts recently made public, FBI “super-agent” Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, were quite candid. Their open disdain for a wide variety for groups including Italians, Russians, Romanians, gypsies, Virginians, Texans, and pro-lifers should surprise no one. The leaders of their party have been saying the same thing in public for years.

Here is one telling exchange between the star-crossed lovers:

“Guccifer. Sleazy Romanian…,” Strzok wrote.

“They ALL are,” Page responded.

“Funny to watch and think of [redacted]. No wonder he’s a brusque as he is…and those Romanians aren’t even the gypsies…” Strzok shot back.

“Seriously, I kind of hate them. (I’m sure [redacted] fine). But they have the crookedness of the Russians with the entitledness of the Italians. Yuck,” Page answered.

In a separate exchange, Page goes after Russians—all of them—again: “…hate them. l think they’re probably the worst. Very little I find redeeming about this. Even in history. Couple of good writers and artists I guess.”

“Probably the worst?” Even worse than those entitled Italians and sleazy Romanians? I guess that means no Tchaikovsky or Rimsky-Korsakov on her playlist.

But it’s not just foreigners. It turns out, they’re not terribly fond of Americans either. Virginians and Texans come in for particular scorn because, well, you know, it’s always open season on rural America and the South. Virginia and Texas must seem like a twofer.

When Jill McCabe (D-Va.), wife of former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, lost a race for the Virginia state senate after taking nearly $700,000 from the Clintons and their allies, Strzok let loose on his neighbors and countrymen.“Disappointing, but look at the district map,” he texted.“Loudoun is being gentrified, but it’s still largely ignorant hillbillys (sic). Good for her for running, but curious if she’s energized or never again.”

I’d guess that the “ignorant” voters of Loudoun County probably realize that the slur he was reaching for is spelled “hillbillies” and not “hillbillys.” Strzok can remember it in the future because it’s the same construction used in other words, like “adulteries” and “felonies.”

He had a few words for the Lone Star State too. “And while i (sic) hate Trump, part of me thought (redacted) would not/may not get into (redacted) because they’re white and not from buttf*ck Texas…”

How about the hundreds of thousands of people from all parts of the country and all walks of life attending the annual March for Life? Page isn’t a fan of them either: “I truly hate these people. No support for the woman who actually has to spend the rest of her life rearing this child, but we are about ‘life.’ Assholes.”

In Page’s world, “life” comes with scare quotes and consists of adultery with a co-worker, leaking classified information to the press, using federal police power to rig presidential elections, and spewing venom at virtually everyone outside of her social and professional circle. What a life.

And what a party. On the plus side, both the white and Jewish Democrats are almost certainly going to receive the Marie Antoinette treatment from the very people they have claimed to champion for decades. They are already being aggressively pushed out of the centers of political power by Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, and Asians everywhere from Atlanta to Minneapolis.

It always strikes me as ironic to see liberal whites and Jews waxing so proudly "anti-racist", when the reality is that only the Japanese can possibly even hope to rival either group for their narcissistic superiority complexes. Which, given their proven inability to grasp the obvious consequences of their actions and policies, are risibly baseless.

Malach prefers "angelically-challenged". After all, it's not his fault that he was kicked out of Heaven.

And if you'll just listen, he can explain everything.

GOD HATES ME: The Diary of an Ex-Angel is a smart, funny, and surprisingly moving tale of a demon who means well and would really like to figure out how to get back to Heaven one day. But how do you make a case for yourself when no one seems to care enough to listen?

The one thing you can't say about Castalia House is that we're too predictable. Richard Cain's new book is... just a little different than you'd probably be expecting. It's human history told through the perspective of a narcissist who never believes he is to blame for anything.

From the reviews:

It's a zippy tale, told in a lively style that gets the reader leaning into the narrative. It's a quirky faux memoir like something we might read if C.S. Lewis's Wormwood had corresponded with Salinger's Holden Caulfield. A few sections made me honestly laugh aloud, something I never expected to happen when cracking a book about a fallen angel. It's as if Frank Peretti actually had a sense of humor...as if Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins actually knew how to jettison the proselytizing, cut the brake lines, and just let the story run.

Despite what the cover looks like, this isn’t a supernatural romance novel. No, it’s something much better. This is a story of a fallen angel seeking redemption. Unfortunately for him, every good deed he tries to accomplish ends up going awry.

In the manner of The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, this book takes the reader inside the head of a fallen angel/demon. The perspective can be a bit troubling, as some of the more pointed passages about casual sins may hit too close to home for the reader. The author demonstrates considerable knowledge of the intricacies of the spiritual world as well as the foibles of the human psyche, upon which the demons prey.

A science fair project at a California high school faced criticism earlier this week after it compared race and IQ levels in connection to participation in an elite program at the school, The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday.

The project, titled “Race and IQ,” was put together by a C.K. McClatchy High School student who is part of the school’s elite Humanities and International Studies Program. It was displayed in the fair on Monday, the outlet said.

In comparing intelligence levels, the project reportedly questioned whether particular races were smart enough for the school’s magnet program and whether a racial disparity was justified.

“If the average IQs of blacks, Southeast Asians, and Hispanics are lower than the average IQs of non-Hispanic whites and Northeast Asians, then the racial disproportionality in (HISP) is justified,” the hypothesis said, according to the outlet.

HISP, according to The Bee, is a separate program at the school that is meant to encourage cultural awareness and helps to provide students with different perspectives on historic moments.

It's at times like this that one suspects the future will be in good hands. Generation Zyklon understands the war they will be waging much better than any of their generational predecessors.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

DL writes concerning his perspective on the battle between Churchianity and the Christian Alt-Right:

After reading your recent posts responding to Churchian attacks on the 16 points and your post addressing an accusation that the Alt-Right is anti-Christian, I felt obligated to explain what the Alt-Right has done for me in a little over a year.

Here is what the philosophy of the Alt-Right as it is laid out in those 16 points has done for that wretched little creature:

1. It has made me pro-Christian.

A broken and humiliated atheist has lost all purpose and sometimes the will to live. When I found myself in that situation the Alt-Right presented me with what so many churches cannot: practical reasons to support orthodox Christianity. It reminded me of everything that Western Civilization has accomplished and that contributing to it is something I can be proud of. It has shown me sufficient evidence to convince me that the two are linked. I never intentionally acted to undermine Christianity, but I did so by foolishly endorsing ideas that undermine Western Civilization.

2. It replaced a philosophy of hedonism.

It’s easy to be a hedonist when you are successful. What I didn’t realize is that my success was not a result of my natural abilities alone but the combination of those abilities with the virtues that were instilled in me while I was raised in a Christian household. Once I abandoned those virtues my natural abilities could not slow down my descent into substance abuse, bankruptcy, and nihilism. The philosophy of the Alt-Right has provided me with a framework to find my way back onto the path of a good man.

3. It taught me that I know nothing.

I have opened my mind to the possibility that there could be a God. I always claimed that was the case but it was a lie. I listen when people pray for me now. I no longer recoil when I hear or read scripture. The neologisms you created regarding science were unpalatable at first but just thinking about the meaning behind them made me realize I had stopped searching for the truth on my own and simply accepted whatever the consensus was.

The alt-Right isn’t anti-Christian. In just over a year the Alt-Right has done what 20 years in church could not: exposed me as a fool, forced me to accept it, and taught me how to change.

He is correct. The Alt-Right is not anti-Christian. How can it be, when it is the foremost philosophical defense of Western civilization? It is said that the value of something can be determined by its fruits. What, pray tell, are the fruits of Churchianity?

This is the fourth and final part of my critique of the Churchian response to the 16 Points of the Alt-Right. The first part, covering Points 1-4, is here. The second part, covering Points 4-8 is here. The second part covering Points 9-12 is here.

13. I have already talked about laissez faire economics. By rejecting free trade, they reject the one of the foundational economic principles of conservatism and political freedom. I reject their absolute ignorance and their ridiculous opinion.

International free trade is not, and has never been, one of the foundational economic principles of conservatism or political freedom. It was Karl Marx, not Edmund Burke or Russell Kirk, who actively supported free trade. When this guy talks about absolute ignorance and ridiculous opinions, he is projecting as badly as any SJW.

14. I completely disagree with this racist garbage. Nothing about being “white” matters in any conceivable way. This is pure racism. I fully reject the Alt Right’s racism.

He claims that nothing about being white matters and he completely disagrees that the survival of white people is a moral imperative. This guy is a racist, white-hating monster. He's actually more akin to a Slav-hating Nazi than a well-meaning cuckservative.

15. Let me see if I can nail down what’s wrong here. “Human sub-species.” As I type I am aware of my righteous indignation. I am typing this paragraph rather slowly because the words “human sub-species” make me so furious that I am trying my best not assume God’s authority in who is and is not damned. Let me make this clear, any fool who believes there are “human sub-species” necessarily believes some people are better than others. The Alt Right just expressed something so detestable that opposition to it was the very reason I served in the military. It is absolutely contemptible. It stands against the very nature of God and His creation of mankind in His own image. I hate, no loathe, everything about that deceitful statement. I condemn it with every fiber of my being.

He doesn't just hate white people, he also hates and fears science. Human sub-species absolutely exist. There is absolutely no question about this. In fact, depending upon how strictly one defines species, humanity today is not even all the same species, due to the fact that some people are pure Homo sapiens sapiens while others are not even full Homo sapiens. He can condemn reality all he likes, but genetic science is what it is.

16. There is a lovely Greek term the Apostle Paul uses, σκύβαλον (skubalon). It means a pile of feces and that is what this statement is. After fifteen increasingly vulgar hate-filled statements of sheer ignorance and pride, these creep slapped this disclaimer on their platform like a surgeon general’s warning on a pack of cigarettes. “We advocate a bunch of racists, misogynist, elitist, nationalist, fascist putrescence, and march around with literal torches and automatic weapon; but hey, if any violence irrupts from all our instigation, we’ve got a CYA (cover your @$$) policy in place. We’re all about peaceful social change, like Gandhi.” It is skubalon. You cannot preach “diversity + proximity = war” knowing you live in a diverse society and then say, “I value peace.” Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15-20) The fruit of the Alt Right is poison. They are hate filled liars seeking to destroy and steal. I reject every part of their message.

It's remarkable how the point about diversity, war, and peace flies right over this guy's head. The point of preaching diversity + proximity = war in a diverse society is to warn people and discourage them from making what is already a serious challenge even worse. Conflict is coming to every diverse society, but with a proper understanding of why that conflict is inevitable, we can hope to mitigate it somewhat, even if we can't reasonably expect to entirely avoid violence and bloodshed.

As for Matthew 7:15-20, we already recognize the evil fruits of Churchianity, chief among which is the enthusiastic acceptance of the rule of Antichrist. They are the deceived of whom the Apostle John warned in his Book of Revelation. They call good evil and evil good.

Almost everything written about the “alternative right” in mainstream outlets is wrong in one respect. The alt-right is not stupid. It is deep. Its ideas are not ridiculous. They are serious. To appreciate this fact, one needs to inquire beyond its presence on social media, where its obnoxious use of insult, obscenity, and racism has earned it a reputation for moral idiocy. The reputation is deserved, but do not be deceived. Behind its online tantrums and personal attacks are arguments of genuine power and expanding appeal. As political scientist George Hawley conceded in a recent study, “Everything we have seen over the past year suggests that the alt-right will be around for the foreseeable future.”

To what is the movement committed? The alt-right purports to defend the identity and interests of white people, who it believes are the compliant victims of a century-long swindle by liberal morality. Its goals are not conventionally conservative. It does not so much question as mock standard conservative positions on free trade, abortion, and foreign policy, regarding them as principles that currently abet white dispossession. Its own principles are not so abstract, and do not pretend to neutrality. Its creed, in the words of Richard Spencer, is “Race is real. Race matters. Race is the foundation of identity.” The media take such statements as proof of the alt-right’s commitment to white supremacy. But this is misleading. For the alt-right represents something more nefarious, and frankly more interesting, than white identity politics.

The alt-right is anti-Christian. Not by implication or insinuation, but by confession. Its leading thinkers flaunt their rejection of Christianity and their desire to convert believers away from it. Greg Johnson, an influential theorist with a doctorate in philosophy from Catholic University of America, argues that “Christianity is one of the main causes of white decline” and a “necessary condition of white racial suicide.” Johnson edits a website that publishes footnoted essays on topics that range from H. P. Lovecraft to Martin Heidegger, where a common feature is its subject’s criticisms of Christian doctrine. “Like acid, Christianity burns through ties of kinship and blood,” writes Gregory Hood, one of the website’s most talented essayists. It is “the essential religious step in paving the way for decadent modernity and its toxic creeds.”

Alt-right thinkers are overwhelmingly atheists, but their worldview is not rooted in the secular Enlightenment, nor is it irreligious. Far from it. Read deeply in their sources—and make no mistake, the alt-right has an intellectual tradition—and you will discover a movement that takes Christian thought and culture seriously. It is a conflicted tribute paid to their chief adversary. Against Christianity it makes two related charges. Beginning with the claim that Europe effectively created Christianity—not the other way around—it argues that Christian teachings have become socially and morally poisonous to the West. A major work of alt-right history opens with a widely echoed claim: “The introduction of Christianity has to count as the single greatest ideological catastrophe to ever strike Europe.”

This is little more than Churchian virtue-signaling. The author should be embarrassed by making a mistake very similar to the one that he criticizes the mainstream media for making. Nor is his attempt to marginalize the Alt-Right as an intrinsically anti-Christian philosophy even remotely coherent, as one cannot both a) characterize its Spencerian aspects as defining its limits while simultaneously b) claiming that it is 100 years old and traces its intellectual roots back to Oswald Spengler.

What most people don't realize is that the mainstream media still regularly contacts me for "the Alt-Right perspective" on current events. However, I no longer talk to them because they never, ever, quoted me in the pieces on the Alt-Right they subsequently ran, even when I provided The New York Times, or The Atlantic, or CBS with direct, substantive, and unevasive answers to their questions. The reason they never ran any quotes, of course, is that my words did not fit their preconceived narrative, while the media-dancing performance art of Richard Spencer and Andrew Anglin did, just as Greg Johnson's anti-Christianity and homosexuality fits the narrative that Matthew Rose and First Things are pushing in order to discredit and demonize the Alt-Right in the eyes of its readership.

But their efforts will fail and they will only discredit themselves, because they are observably not rooted in the easily verifiable truth. The Alt-Right doesn't just stand for the European races, but for the West. And Christianity is as integral and irreplaceable an element of Western civilization as the European races; it is one of the three pillars of the West. The Alt-Right supports genuine Bible-based traditional Christianity, not the evil globalist Churchianity that presently wears so many nominally Christian organizations like a demon-possessed skinsuit.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Greg, Richard, or Andrew for the fact that both the mainstream media and the Christian media happen to find their particular perspectives to be useful. I am simply pointing out that, once again, the media simply cannot be trusted to report on philosophical matters such as these in an accurate, honest, or intelligent manner.

The Alt-Right is not an anti-Christian philosophy. It is pro-Christian and anti-Churchian. And as Instapundit noted, "with most churches being temples of social justice", the open enmity between the globalist Judeo Christ-worshiping Churchians and both the Christian and non-Christian factions of the Alt-Right is hardly a surprise.